corporate welfare

February 16, 2012 2:00AM

The government auto bailout: $474,000 per GM employee

With sales and profits up at General Motors, proponents of the 2009 automotive bailout for GM (and Chrysler) now assert the taxpayer-financed rescue was a success. In a visit to Michigan in late January, U.S. president Barack Obama argued the deal saved jobs. Canadian politicians, including Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, who last summer incorrectly asserted taxpayers received all their money back, have made similar boasts.

Given the revisionist history in play, lets place that 2009 deal in proper context.

Tags:

auto bailout, government spending, corporate welfare, general motors, gm bailout, general motors bailout, financial aid, stimulus, chrysler bailout

August 27, 2011 2:00AM

While you were on vacation: more fake job creation from governments

Mark Milke

While many Canadians were on vacation this summer, including many journalists and opposition parliamentarians who might notice taxpayer cash dribbling away, our governments continued to hand out more corporate welfare.

In late August, Ontario offered up $2-million to Dana Holdings and $3-million to Centra Industries, both in Cambridge, Ontario. Predictably, the usual flawed justification was offered: taxpayer subsidies will create or preserve jobs.

Tags:

job creation, corporate welfare, dana holdings, centra industries, Pratt & Whitney Canada, government spending

August 7, 2011 2:00AM

The welfare state was always an illusion

Mark Milke

The latest deals to save American and Greek public financesallowing those countries to put themselves into even deeper debtshould puncture the illusion the welfare state was ever a success. The fact is, it was always built on borrowed time and borrowed money.

Tags:

corporate welfare, government spending, debt, government debt

June 5, 2011 2:00AM

The auto bailout was always a bad idea

Mark Milke

Milton Friedman once said his greatest fear about the 1979 bailout of Chrysler by the U.S. federal government was not that it would fail, but that it would succeed. Friedman didnt mean he was wrong to oppose it. What concerned him was how Chryslers rescue (approved by the U.S. Congress in late 1979 and signed into law by President Jimmy Carter in 1980) might lead some to draw the wrong conclusion: the notion that such actions save jobs, among other illusions.

Tags:

auto bailout, corporate welfare, Chrysler, subsidies

May 1, 2011 2:00AM

Canada's Santa Claus campaign

Mark Milke

Canadas federal election was supposed to be the Seinfeld campaigna contest about nothing, at least until the NDPs polling numbers shot up. But regardless of how campaigns are tagged, they are always about something. This latest one should be called the Santa Claus campaign. That is, promises galore with only scant attention paid to how such election-time Christmas gifts will be financed.

Tags:

corporate welfare

December 12, 2010 2:00AM

Canadas non-subsidized auto companies continue to thrive

Mark Milke

When the federal and Ontario governments transferred $14.5 billion in taxpayer cash to GM and Chrysler in 2009, they likely did so with the best of intentionsto preserve jobs, though no doubt southern Ontario votes also figured heavily into the equation. But in a recent analysis from Dennis DesRosier, the automotive analyst noticed that employment in the Canadian automotive sector, despite the bailout and economic recovery, continues to fall.

Tags:

government subsidies, corporate welfare

November 27, 2009 2:00AM